Late Weimar Germany produced a number of fine anti-authoritarian films, perhaps the best of which was MAEDCHEN IN UNIFORM, the story of a girl's struggles within the rigid discipline of a boarding school for daughters of poor military officers. New student Manuela (Thiele) is homesick, introspective, and alienated. The headmistress (Unda) disapproves of such individualism, and rules her students with the proto-Nazi dictum: "Through discipline and hunger, hunger and discipline, we shall rise again." Manuela becomes attached to one teacher (Wieck), who sees in the sensitive new student a reflection of her former, nonconformist self. But Manuela's dependence on her mentor grows into obsessive love, testing the headmistress' tolerance.